Ok, so apparently regular blogging is going by the wayside. :p

I did finish my son's cardigan. It was beautiful. It was sexy. It was bright freaking red. I sent him in it to school today.

It was pulled apart by the velcro in someone's jacket prior to him coming home.

I did get pictures before I sent him, but I'm ready to cry.

Olympic knitting goal 1 finished.
Will to document it after seeing what a 3 year old does to a brand new sweater that I started Sunday and finished this morning.... low.

I'll put them up after I've had a good cry.

Olympic knitting

Hmm, I'm very tempted to sign up for the Knitting Olympics. But I think part of my goal should be to update this blog for each project finished in those 17 days. Part of why I haven't been updating is because I've been knitting like a mad woman. The more stressful my work gets, the more I knit. Last week, I knit 4 shawls in 6 days including blocking time. I could have done more, but didn't want to give up quality family time.

Given that I have a 3 year old, a dog, some cats (amount varies depending on whether the shed cat is around), and a husband who all deserve quality time that doesn't involve me knitting, I'm wondering what is a reasonable goal.

I think that over those 17 days updating this blog WITH pictures every 3 days after cast on is not unreasonable. I think over 17 days, considering that at least one of them must be spent on the road dealing with family trouble, one of them spent on the road coordinating child pickup and dropoff, and one of them spent moving furniture, I want to make sure that I don't over commit, but what I choose is a challenge.

Cast on is tonight. Haha.

Okay, goal #1. Finish prototype shawl for pattern I wrote, and generate .pdf for test knitters.
This one is hard for me to want to do. I have had 2 false starts with this shawl due to not liking the yarn. I have a final contender, I'll run with that.

Goal #2. Make a cardigan for my youngest. Size 6, he's big for his age.

Goal #3. make cardigan for myself (own design) for pattern prototype.

Realistically, I'm less comfortable knitting something I wrote because I second guess myself right now. This might be overreaching what I can accomplish in the time given, but if it's not a challenge it doesn't count.

Countdown to the lighting of the torch begins!

bad blogger, no cookies

So, it's been a while.

I've actually had a bunch of knitting projects, of which I've only taken a couple of pictures that I haven't downloaded to the computer yet. I know, bad bad blogger.

I hope to have some time to upload pictures this week, as what's a knitting blog sans pictures?

I've been knitting for my eldest Aunt. She has cancer, and is scheduled to undergo chemo and radiation therapies this month. My mother chose some beautiful yarns. We've had an alpaca/silk, a full alpaca, and now I'm working on a zauberball. The last being a crazy sock yarn that does self striping. I have pictures of the alpaca/silk being blocked and will upload sometime soon (I hope).

We've also gotten a new addition to the family. She's about 22 months old, and is a hand-me-down from more than one previous family. Emma is a cocker spaniel, but I think she may have some poodle in her from the amount of curls in her fur. We'll see how her coat grows before I am sure, though.

I'm 2/3s of the way through my husband's scarf (he needs a new one every year), and I need to make one for my father and my 2 sons. I've got a lovely mini-mochi for my littlest's and some Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid Lustre in black and a mauve for my dad. My oldest is getting a Cascade 220 in either screaming blue or screaming green. Not sure how that will work up yet.

Anyway, that's the news that is fit or not to print here.

Back to the needles...

baby it's cold outside

I think what I love best about this season is it gives me an excuse to get a warm drink and bundle into a comfortable chair with my knitting. As a matter of fact, the knitting makes the lounging productive instead of a pretty way of putting off the warm weather things that need to be done.

I hope to have some pictures of FOs up by Saturday. I did complete Miralda's Triangular Shawl. I used needles up 2 sizes from the recommended and I'm a loose knitter, so it ended up being quite large. It has been hand-dyed into a dappled blue, and it should be soft and big enough to keep my mother in law warm.

I've also gotten 3/4 of the way through one of those triangular leaf shawls. My mother asked me to make one in the jo-joland sock colorways. I am just putting the edging on now. From cast on to bind off, this shawl has taken roughly 6 days. I suspect another 3 for the edging given where they fall in the week.

Our littlest has been grossly sick the last couple of days. He seems to be feeling better now, but for some reason every time he gets sick I get vomited on. Hence why I own about 400 pajama bottoms. I'm looking forward to getting past this stage.

In the meantime, I have a conference call I have to join. I'd better grab my knitting....

quick interruption

Yesterday I was taking pictures of my WIP with the half-formed WIP Wednesday idea in mind. We got a phone call saying my mother in law is laid up in the hospital so that kind of got derailed. With this in mind, I've cast on Miralda's Triangular Shawl from the incomparable Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia. I'm 30 rows in after 2 hours, and I intend on finishing this before Monday so that she'll have something to keep her warm while she's laid up. No pictures available at the moment, and possibly not until Monday.

For the record, this pattern is very enjoyable. I like the working method of knitting the longest knit runs at the beginning very much. This way when I'm reaching pattern burnout I'll be knitting the shortest rows and the promise of finishing the project will drive me on.

I've cast on using KnitPicks palette yarn in blush, the yarn is springy and warm with a nice sheen to it, but I find the blush color a bit overpowering baby pink in the pattern. I'll be dying this after it's knit.
Anyway, off to the hospital.

Stashery, the final frontier

So, I might have a problem. Just a little one. I can't pass up a really good yarn on sale. I have roughly 20 skeins hidden about my bedroom. It's like a squirrel hoarding nuts, except I take them out periodically through my week to look at them and think deep knittery thoughts.

This isn't a large stash. Until you take into account that I have another hidden stash in my home office, and another in my library.... and none of these are counted as part of my "official" stash. You know, the one you own up to when people talk about the yarn they have.

The worst part? There will always be a fabulous yarn out there. I know this.

But walk into a yarn shop, and the atmosphere overcomes me. Before I know it, I'm paying homage to the cash register in order to walk away with irresistible booty. I feel no buyer's remorse over yarn purchases. Yarn is realizable potential yet to be tapped. Fondling it through fingers, I can picture the many options and possibilities it could succumb to.

The act of knitting, however, is my little act of Zen. Until it isn't. At which point, my knitting learns all kinds of new and exciting invectives. The more colorful the better. After all, what is knitting with no color?

Maybe what I need is to collect all stash into one spot. Put it into a padlocked box. Force random passers by to dig an underground fortress and then off them all so only I will know where it is....

Or maybe I should just knit faster.

First Post

Not really sure what to put for the first post, but it does come more easily with time. I'm moving to blogger from a different site. It might just be the people I've run across on here, but this seems to be a community space that I'll be more comfortable in.

I haven't decided what I want to put here yet. I just know I'm ready for a more adult (without being ADULT-adult, this is a family show) web space.

Should be interesting.